“Talk!” Bryant looked down
at the man kneeling in front of him. The man’s ankles and his left hand were
bound tightly together with thin wire. Only his right hand was free, a cell
phone epoxied to it.
The man shook in fear, his
voice tremulous as he asked, “What…what do I say?”
“Are you stupid? I've
already told you what to say!” With the point of his knife Bryant punched in
the phone number of one of the local television stations, again. With his
trembling, the man’s fingers had disconnected the call before he could say more
than a few words. “Ask for the news desk again.”
The man did as he was
ordered. Then, terror filling his voice he told the person who answered, “They
are going…they’ll kill me because…because I was in a store talking on…oh
God…help me! Please you have to… They’re going to kill me for talking in…in
public on my phone…” He broke then, sobbing, clutching the phone to his chest.
Crispin shook his head. “You
didn’t do a terribly good job of that. Perhaps my brother can persuade you to
talk more clearly?” His smile was evil as he looked Bryant.
“With pleasure.” Bryant
pressed the blade of the knife to the man’s bare chest, drawing it slowly from clavicle
to navel.
The man looked down in
horror as his skin separated and blood flowed in a thick stream, following the
course of the blade. “No!” he screamed. “I’ll do whatever you want but please
don’t hurt me any more.”
Bryant looked at his
brother. “What do you think?”
“I’m quite enjoying his
pleading actually.”
Again Bryant sliced the man,
this time from nipple to nipple. The man sobbed, begging again for him to stop.
“Are you going to deliver
the message without all the hysterics?” Bryant asked.
“I’ll try, I swear it. I
will.”
Punching in another number,
this time to the newspaper, Bryant told him to ask for the city desk. It took a
few moments for the man to reach someone who would listen to what he had to
say. Then, his eyes following the tip of the knife blade as Bryant moved it
slowly in front of his face, he gave the reporter the same message he had the
person at the television station, but much more clearly. When he was finished
but before he could disconnect the blade sliced him from his forehead to the
tip of his nose. He screamed in anguish and then passed out. Bryant grabbed the
hand with the phone, saying tersely, “He’ll die for his sins,” and then hung
up.
“Die for his sins?”
Crispin’s lips quirked up in amusement.
“It, umm, sounded dramatic,
and with the ‘cross’ on his chest it fit.” Bryant knelt beside the man, pulling
him onto his side while avoiding the blood pooled on the tarp. “Any objections
if I kill him now or would you like the honors?”
“Be my guest.”
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